Murder Most Strange

by Dell Shannon

  He came up to Grace, who was brushing his hairline mustache back and forth as a sign of irritation, and said, "What's up?"

  "This is Sergeant Palliser," said Grace. "Mrs. Stubbs and Mrs. Ryder. Suppose you tell him the story over again, Mrs. Stubbs."

  "Why, all right." She was quite willing to talk. They were both nondescript commonplace females, middle-aged, a little dowdy; this one had brown hair fast turning gray and a round face and tortoiseshell glasses, the other one was thinner with sandy hair. "It was awful, just awful. We were just coming along here, to get the bus up on Sixth, easier to cut across the park. We both live up on San Marino, we're neighbors, and there wasn't a soul here except the man on the bench. And we were talking, not paying much attention to him, but when we were about right where we are now this young fellow went up to him and said something, I don't know what, and then, I couldn't believe my eyes, right here in the open in broad daylight, he took a knife out of his pocket and stabbed him! Just stabbed him two or three times, and Edith sort of screamed and I guess I did too, and then he came running right past us, he didn't take any notice of us at all—most terrible thing I ever saw—and we went to look and the poor man was dead! All that blood—"

  "Go and take a look, John," said Grace. "There's a lab unit on the way to take pictures."

  The uniformed man was brooding over the lone figure on the bench up there beside the lake. Palliser took a look and uttered a few swearwords. He went back to Grace.

  ". . . Civic duty," said Mrs. Ryder as he came up, "of course we'll be glad to give you statements about it. But as to identifying anybody, well, it was just a flash, and we were both so startled—I couldn't say I'd know him again—young, and he had light hair—"

  "He was tall—"

  "Not as tall as you," said Mrs. Ryder, looking at Palliser. "I'd say about as tall. He had on a white shirt—"

  "Light blue."

  "I'm sure, Edith-"

  "So am I. And he could change his shirt, I suppose."

  Grace had their addresses; they finally went on their way, the lab unit arrived, and Palliser and Grace went back to the body. "And by God," said Palliser, "this is just too long a coincidence, Jase! Look at him—just look—in a general way, he's a ringer for Joe Kelly—and, by God, even that old wino on the Row! A superficial resemblance, but the same type. They were all in the sixties, middle-sized, ordinary-looking—all knifed—and I don't buy the coincidence. And Kelly said the fellow who followed him was young and had light hair— What the hell is this?"

  "I thought you'd be interested," said Grace.

  "And who the hell is this one?" It was a while before they could look; the lab men were always thorough. Eventually Marx handed over a billfold. It contained seven dollars and fifty-three cents, various credit cards, a membership card for a local Elks club, and identification for Robert Barker, an address on Park View Street two blocks away.

  They walked up there; it was a neat little old duplex. The woman who answered the door was comfortably round and pink-faced and smiling, gray-haired, her hands floury. "I'm sorry, I was in the middle of mixing up biscuits, what is it? What kind of a thing is that?" She stared at Palliser's badge.

  There weren't any right ways to break bad news. She said at first, blankly, "Why, yes, Robert's up at the park, he's just getting over the flu, hasn't gone back to work yet, he thought the sun would be good for—" And then after silence she said, "But Robert can't be dead! How could Robert be dead?"

  The woman who lived on the other side of the duplex, a widow named McNally, came over on appeal, saying she'd known the Barkers for years, was a good friend. "Oh, Nellie!" sobbed Mrs. Barker. "Oh, Nellie—got to call Rita and Bob Junior—I don't understand it—he was feeling so much better this morning—"

  "You leave everything to me, Dottie." She could, of course, tell them this and that more sensibly.

  "Coincidence I do not buy," said Palliser angrily, back at the office. "And I thought I was woolgathering, saying there was a vague resemblance between the old wino and Kelly, but now look at this!"

  Mendoza was interested. "Yes, it's a pattern, but for God's sake what kind?"

  "How the hell can anybody guess? But look at it! They all conform generally to the same description. On the wino, anybody down there might knife anybody for the price of a bottle of muscatel, but for what it's worth he had a buck or two on him. Kelly, the inoffensive ordinary retired railroader. No enemies, no money, no reason for anybody to kill him. And now here's Robert Barker, the same damn kind. He worked for Greyhound, ticket seller at the Sixth Street station, a year off retirement. Quiet family man, little money, no enemies. He wasn't robbed—he had seven dollars on him."

  "Mmh, yes," said Mendoza. "A pattern. But it doesn't point in any direction. I suppose there wasn't any connection between them?"

  "Hell," said Palliser thoughtfully, "I wonder if there could have been? That is a thought. Between Kelly and Barker, it's possible. They lived in the same general area, had the same sort of backgrounds. I'll have a look. But for God's sake, it's senseless—knifing a man in the open, with witnesses—"

  "Who don't sound like such reliable witnesses," said Mendoza dryly, and Grace laughed ruefully.

  "How many ever are?"

  And just then Sergeant Lake came trotting down the hall.

  "We've got Bartovic! They just picked him up down in Santa Monica."

  * * *

  The squad car from Santa Monica delivered Rudy Bartovic to the central jail twenty minutes later, and Mendoza, Hackett, Palliser and Grace were waiting for him. His car, the old T-bird, was being towed in for lab examination.

  They started in to grill him then and there. Unless they found some good solid evidence in his car, or broke him down to confess that he'd attacked and abducted Eileen Mooney, they couldn't hold him more than twenty-four hours without a warrant. And he was a punk; he might be prone to violence, he might be a user, but he didn't have a long or bad record, he wasn't a real tough, and he might come apart right away. He wasn't an attractive specimen, slouching at the little table in the interrogation room. He was a big hulk, long unkempt dark hair, beetling eyebrows, a strong prow of a nose. He wasn't long on brains, and he was naturally suspicious of police.

  "All right, Rudy, where's Eileen?" Higgins began it, grim and professional, looming over him.

  "What the hell you mean? I don't know why you picked me up, I haven't done anything."

  "Ei1een Mooney. Where is she? Where'd you take her?"

  "I didn't take her anywhere. What the hell?"

  "You know what we're talking about. What did you do to her?"

  "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about. The last time I saw Eileen was last Friday night."

  "And you gave her a rough time, didn't you, Rudy?"

  Mendoza cut in coldly. "You thought she'd be an easy girl, you were mad when she fought you, weren't you? Maybe you'd been thinking about that, wanted to get even. How about it, Rudy?"

  "I—she hadn't no call to do that, I never meant any harm. I don't know what you mean."

  "Where is she, Rudy?"

  "I don't know!" he snarled.

  "Come on, come on," said Higgins roughly, "we can read it plain enough, Rudy. You saw her pass on her way to the park, you followed her and saw her sitting there—nobody else around. You probably drove your car down to a handy spot alongside the park—and you grabbed her there, and she fought you again, didn't she?"

  "What did you do to her to make her bleed that much, Rudy?" asked Grace.

  "I never did nothing to her."

  "Then where is she?" Mendoza's voice cut like a knife. "It's pretty damn obvious she was taken away from the park by force, and you were the one right there on the spot—you were the one who'd been pestering her for dates, took her out last week and damn near raped her, and got mad at her when she resisted—"

  "I don't know what the hell you're all talkin' about. I don't know nothing about Eileen."

  "Where've you been si
nce last Tuesday?" asked Higgins abruptly.

  "Oh, for God's sake. Around. I been feeling lousy, no job, everything gone to hell, Ma nag at me—I just didn't feel like goin' home. I drove around—I—Tuesday? You got me confused—I went to a couple movies somewhere, and then—since then—I been with a girl friend down in Santa Monica, that's were I got picked up."

  "What's her name?"

  "Doreen. Doreen Segura. Twenty-fourth Street."

  They went all around it again and again, and he kept saying the same things. It was after six-thirty when Mendoza said, "Damn it, leave it overnight. We can hold him until tomorrow afternoon. See what the lab turns on the car." And those boys were finicky and thorough: it would take time to vacuum that heap and examine everything under the microscope; but some blood, a few of Ei1een's copper-penny hairs in a suggestive place, when he knew the evidence was there he might change his tune. See what the girl said. "And leave a note for the night watch, as soon as they've chased her down, call me on it immediatamente!"

  * * *

  At ten-thirty when the phone rang Mendoza was dealing himself crooked poker hands on the coffee table in the living room. Alison was upstairs doing her nails, and the cats had gone to visit Mairi's little downstairs suite, being fascinated with her knitting.

  "Yes?"

  "Join the force and see life," said Conway. "This Segura female is a topless dancer at a third-rate club down here. I don't know how honest she is, but, Christmas, chief, she is stacked. I've been talking to her backstage. She says she hadn't laid eyes on Bartovic in about six months until he landed at her place around noon on Wednesday. She felt sorry for him, down on his luck, and let him stay. He'd been there ever since—well, she was out working last night—working, hah—but he was there when she got home at four A.M.”

  "¡Condenación! That's no damn use to us—he could have killed the girl Tuesday morning and dropped the body somewhere by Tuesday afternoon."

  "Yeah, I know, but that's what she says. She also says he had some pretty good grass on him. If he'd been high on the pot, he might be a little vague about times."

  "And if he'd been smoking pot he might have been sniffing coke or hitting the angel dust, which would make it all the likelier he'd do a murder," said Mendoza irritably.

  "Something might show up in the car," said Conway.

  Mendoza was annoyed. He put the phone down and unprecedentedly went out to the kitchen to get himself a drink. El Senor, who could hear that particular cupboard door open the length of the house away, appeared as if by magic on the countertop and demanded his share. "Ought to join A.A.," muttered Mendoza at him. "This is not good for cats. You had your daily ration before dinner, borrachón!"

  * * *

  Before Conway got back, Schenke and Piggott were called out to another heist, at a bar on Second. There were only four witnesses. "It's been a slow night," said the bartender, whose name was O'Toole. "I was going to close early, just these three guys here, and then he walked in." They all gave the same description: blond, big, husky, with a big gun. "And when he says, hand it over and do it quick, I guess I was a little shook—it was so sudden—and he got real ugly and says, I said move it, man, and damned if he didn't shoot at me—I felt the damn bullet go past. Oh, and he had a real broad southern accent." They all confirmed that.

  "Well, well," said Schenke. "Our hair-trigger artist again, by all that. Where'd the slug hit?" He spotted the hole in the wall over the bar, got out his knife and prodded for it, got it out looking fairly intact.

  They all offered to come in and look at mug shots, but that would probably be a waste of time. And he hadn't gotten much; the customers figured out that they'd lost about fifteen dollars all told, and he'd only gotten thirty from the register. Writing the report on that took them to the end of the shift. Piggott drove home through the largely empty dark streets, the traffic lights uncannily dark too. He was tired; maybe he was getting spring fever. At the apartment, he climbed the stairs quietly, fumbled with his key and went into the living room. He stood there for a few minutes watching the big lighted aquarium in one corner, with the beautiful tropical fish gliding around it smooth and lazy. He felt himself relaxing just for the sight; and tomorrow was his day off. He undressed in the dark and got into bed beside Prudence, and she stirred and said drowsily, "Matt," before going to sleep again.

  * * *

  On Friday morning Higgins looked at Piggott's report and said, "So I was dragging my heels on it. The hair-trigger's not a local. Definitely the southern accent. So let's ask NCIC if they've got anybody similar listed." He went down to Communications to send off a query.

  Mendoza was already on the phone to SID, but it was an hour before Duke and Fisher came into the office. They looked glum and tired; Duke kept rubbing his eyes. "I know you've had the hell of a job at short notice," said Mendoza.

  "But we can't hold him past four P.M.—"

  "I don't think you can hold him at all," said Duke. "We've got a few suggestive little things but not really enough."

  "Damnation. What have you got?”

  The two SID men had been up all night going over Bartovic's car. Wanda brought in coffee; everybody was there, waiting to hear what they had. "There was some blood on the spare tire in the trunk," said Duke. "Not much, just some. Three red-blond hairs on the front seat, and a nearly new lip-stick that looks like a color a redhead might use. Also a female handkerchief, pretty clean, with the initial E on it, also in the front seat."

  "¡Diez millén demonios!" said Mendoza. "She could have lost those in the car on Friday night. Which Bartovic would realize.”

  "There was the dust from marijuana leaves all over the place," said Fisher. "The car's been at the beach a lot, beach sand all over too. More hairs, probably female, in the back seat—black and brown. That's really about it."

  "What type was the blood?" asked Mendoza.

  "O." Fisher didn't comment, and Mendoza snarled. That was the commonest type; also Eileen Mooney's type. But it wasn't enough.

  "If we ask him about it," said Higgins, "he'll say he scraped his knuckles changing a tire."

  They made another try at it, of course. Mendoza, Hackett and Higgins went over to the jail and spent a while grilling Bartovic again, going at him hot and heavy. He just kept saying he didn't know nothing about Eileen, he hadn't seen her since last week, he didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

  “We can't hold him," said Mendoza with a vicious snap of his lighter, on the jail steps. "Minus a body, it's nothing." They were all annoyed about it, but it couldn't be helped. And even in the great urban sprawl of L.A., there were places a body could lie for months without being found.

  They stopped for lunch, and got back to the office just after one. The kickback from NCIC had come in. Known and currently wanted violent heisters from below the Mason-Dixon line, or possessing southern accents wherever they had latest violated the law, and corresponding to the descriptions, numbered exactly three, on two jobs. A pair of brothers from Tennessee, Walt and Gilbert Craven. And Leroy Rogers, wanted on a job in Georgia. The Cravens were wanted for a heist in Nashville where a man had been shot and seriously wounded. Rogers was wanted for a homicide pulled on the Georgia heist. All of them matched the description, of course.

  "Well," said Higgins, looking at that, "let's see what these lawmen might know about these characters, if any of them have any relatives or pals out here. Of course, they might have landed here by accident, that kind just does what comes naturally." But leads turned up in odd places sometimes, and it was usually the dogged routine that broke cases. He glanced at the clock. "Time differences—oh, the day shift'll still be on back there." He sat down at his desk and picked up the phone.

  Palliser and Grace came in, heard the news about Bartovic and cussed. They looked tired and annoyed. Palliser said to Wanda, "We could both use some coffee."

  "Wait on you just because I'm female," she grumbled, but she went to get it.

  "Well," said Palliser, "we n
ow know there was no connection between Kelly and Barker. Both Simms and Moreno are definite on that. Certainly neither of them could have had any connection with the derelict."

  "The autopsy report on Kelly came in while you were gone," said Wanda brightly.

  "So," said Mendoza, "let's see if it has anything to tell us."

  He took it from her, scanned it rapidly, shrugged and passed it over to Palliser. "Nada absolutamente. Healthy specimen for his age, slightly enlarged heart. Approximate time of death . . . And the knife tapers from an inch and a half to a quarter inch, and has a serrated edge. Even if the autopsy on Barker says that too, that's an ordinary-sized knife, you can buy one in any hardware store."

  "Well, there's just one thing struck me," said Grace. He stretched out his legs, leaning back and sipping coffee.

  "Any idea is welcome," said Palliser.

  "That bum on the Row," said Grace, and his brown face wore a meditative expression. "Over there, you could knife a man on the street and never be noticed, so many of the crowd being drunks and dopies. But on Kelly, you know, he used a little rudimentary cunning, lying in wait for him like that. And then on Barker he did it right out in the open, in a fairly decent area of town, middle of the day in front of two witnesses, no caution at all. It looks to me as if he's a nut, and getting nuttier fast."

  "Thank you," said Palliser. "That hadn't occurred to me, Jase. So it could be the next time he hits, it'll be in the middle of a crowd and somebody might nab him."